Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee Q&A

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Paddy Considine and Shane Meadows discuss their mock-doc.

By Chris Tilly

Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee is the latest slice of lo-fi brilliance from long-time collaborators Paddy Considine and Shane Meadows. A spoof documentary about roadie Le Donk and his rapping protégée Scor-zay-zee attending an Arctic Monkeys gig, the film was shot in five days on a shoestring budget, yet is as funny as anything Hollywood has produced of late. We caught up with the director and stars to discuss the film, which hits DVD today.

IGN: Are you surprised at how much attention the film is getting?

Shane Meadows: Yeah, because the release came about from people watching it in Edinburgh and saying we've really enjoyed seeing it in a cinema. I thought it wouldn't blow up at all and then weirdly it seemed more cinematic than I'd sort of accounted for, and that was a big surprise. Part of the reason I wanted to make this, was because I know how funny Paddy is and what a great comedic actor he is.

Paddy Considine: I thought it was just all a big in-joke that only we had found funny. The fact that it got this response... I've been quite blown away by it. I'm really proud of it, I'm more proud of it than anything I've ever done before so I'm glad that it's getting received really well.

Scor-zay-zee and Le Donk in action.

IGN: Where did the idea of Le Donk come from?

Considine: From the time that I met Shane. We'd started a band and six weeks later we recorded an EP and then we were playing gigs. When we got in the studio we kind of attracted these people. The music scene is full of them; people who want to be your manager, but they've got no credentials at all. He's kind of an amalgamation of them and different experiences really.

IGN: Paddy, was that your real hair in the film?

Considine: No it wasn't, but I love the fact you think it was real! If we ever did another one I'd just put the same wig on, I don't think you mess with things like that.

Meadows: That £10 wig goes back to all the shorts that we made. The thing is with all of these things, we did at one point write a screenplay where we were looking at a one-to-two million pound budget but Paddy put the scuppers on and said: "no, he's not for that world - that just won't sell". Paddy had been doing films like The Bourne Ultimatum, and I'd made This Is England, and I was so tired of how long everything was taking, and then Donk came along. I hope we can inspire other people that you don't have to make a film for huge amounts of money and for really long periods of time.

IGN: Paddy, were you in character throughout the whole shoot?

Considine: Yeah there's only two times I've ever stayed in character for an entire shoot and the first was A Room For Romeo Brass, which was the first film I did with Shane, and the second time was Le Donk. With Le Donk I stayed in character all the time because it sort of takes over and I don't know what's coming out of his mouth. I quite like getting away with things as Le Donk.

Click above for the Le Donk trailer.

IGN: Scor-zay-zee, how did you react to the character of Le Donk?

Scor-zay-zee: At first when he was being Le Donk it was literally him. In the beginning I thought cheeky sod, talking to me like that. But he pulled his hat off and said, "listen I'm only joking". After about half an hour I thought this is quite fun, he's quite sharp. So what I thought was, don't react to it too much just flow with it. I was playing Le Donk's lodger, so I knew him quite well, which meant that I probably wouldn't laugh at him. If I was laughing at everything he said then that would have ruined it.

IGN: The Arctic Mondays seem like funny blokes. Was there more stuff with them that wasn't used?

Meadows: We all agreed that if we started using the Arctic Mondays too much it would have been like we were trying to push the whole celebrity thing. So the fact that they were quite subtle in the film was one of its strengths I think. We are in their backdrop. They just kind of gave us permission to be there, and when Scor-zay-zee meets them in the film, when he asks them if he can plug in his keyboard, he had no idea who they were.

Scorz: I'd heard their songs, but I've never seen them. When I asked them it looks like a joke but it was only after the camera man said those were the Arctic Monkeys that I kind of went, "oh damn".

Meadows: A lot of the film was like a documentary, we only had two back stage passes, one for me and one for Paddy. So when he [Scorz] comes walking round the corner with a keyboard and a camera man of his own I was like, "how did he get on here?" The Arctic Monkeys came on stage to do a sound check and genuinely said that guy's brilliant. Then Le Donk/Paddy spotted the opportunity and started saying, "ah if you need a support slot".

IGN: Finally Shane, can you tell us about the television series that you are working on?

Meadows: Yeah, it's called We Were Faces and it's a follow on from This Is England, set in 1986. I've got no snobbery whatsoever about shooting shorts, making a film with £50m or with five pence. I just want to do things that interest me really. After seeing things like The Sopranos and The Wire there's no shame in television. It's shows like that, that make me realise that TV doesn't have to be all about cheap sitcoms.